7 comments:

How can this not have been passed years ago? Sadder; what is wrong with us that we even need legislation to make this so? Sometimes I think we haven't progressed much since midevil times. I just notified Senators Harkin and Grassley from Iowa and I will follow up to see if they support the bill.

Red herring crap, ABB. The discrepancy that you are so indignant about is accounted for by defferences in education, experience, seniority, and hours worked. Sorry--this is just another non-issue to get vocally agitated about.

Mark - as demonstrated in my own working life, education does not translate into experience which evolves into seniority and hours worked when you are a woman passed up because your boss feels that a man "needs" that promotion more than you so that he can provide for his family.

This is not an issue of me getting worked up over some shit I've never seen or experienced.

Oh, and while you hesitate - I've been told that trifling "but he's married with kids" shit to my face.

We'll get into the socio-economic connections to education some other time...

Actually, y'all are both correct. Economics is a complex science (no duh, right?) and numerous factors account for pay discrepancy. Yes, the old "provide for family" baloney is still around, but Mark's point is a very valid one - the majority of low-paying professions (teaching, nursing, waitressing, etc.) have an overwhelming female-to-male ratio. Further, men in these professions tend to pursue the higher-compensating subprofessions - Nurse Anestheticists make well into the six figures annually, and the major of NAs are men...)

And yes, each year a woman takes off to raise children keeps her at her present rung on the income ladder, or drops her further down the line. (For those jobs such as airline pilot or teacher where experience plays a significant part in overall compensation ratios, why shouldn't it?)

The flip side comes about with childless people - how many extra hours/weeks/months/years have I worked in my life to cover for people who had sick kids and "had to go home a little early today"? Do you think I get to go home a little early when my dog doesn't feel good? And if I do, that my coworkers accept it?

I'd call education a draw, especially as women outnumber men in many college disciplines such as medicine which traditionally result in higher pay (and since I have dear friends who went to Simon's Rock - you guys are a brainy batch of youngsters!) - for hard sciences (physics, engineering) where there is still a heavy male balance: they don't make as much money as people might think...

The statistics noted above are average differences in pay for men and women, however it's a well documented fact that the pay women receive is less than that for men even accounting for education, experience, and the presence of children in the home. Seriously folks, it took me less than 2 minutes to find the following study published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that concludes "There is a substantial gap in median earnings between men and women that is unexplained, even after controlling for work experience (to the extent it can be represented by age and presence of children), education,and occupation. Further, women have more similar earnings than men within the same occupation, controllingfor age and education." http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/07/art3full.pdf Wage inequality due to gender is a real and continuing problem. Also to rileysdtr; explaining differences in pay for men and women by differences in occupations begs the question of whether female dominated occupations are low-paying "naturally" or if they're low-paying because they're female dominated. For instance, two of the three female dominated occupations you mentioned, nursing and teaching, both require post-secondary education. Based on the education and skill they require, these occupations should not be lower paying. You might want to read Roos and Reskin's Job Queues, Gender Queues to see how gender segregation in occupations can work to maintain and exacerbate pay inequities.